


move together

by kirkaut



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7549261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirkaut/pseuds/kirkaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He nearly slips up a handful of times, mentions of something Bitty did or Bitty said dancing on the tip of his tongue. He lets a couple loose, figuring it isn't unusual for two former teammates and good friends to keep in touch, but he has to stop himself from starting a couple of sentences with, <i>"The last time Bits was here..."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	move together

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Shitty’s aggravated shout rattles down through the speaker of Jack’s cell phone, loud and blustering. The sound of it makes Jack wince and run his hand through his hair, a nervous tic he’s never been able to shake.

“Bro,” Shitty says, sounding irritated and - Jack’s gut clenches - _hurt._ “What the fuck, man? This is like, the fifth time you’ve bailed on me. In a _row_. I know you say you don't have a girlfriend, but I don't know what the fuck else could be so important that you keep blowing me off! I have a copy of your goddamn game schedule, dude, and I get that you’re a big shot, fucking...NHL superstar now - ”

“Shitty,” Jack interrupts, sitting down on the couch and bending over his knees. He clenches his hair between his fingers and pulls, hoping that the sting of it will distract from the ache that comes with fighting with his closest friend. He _hates_ arguing with Shitty, hates the fear that throttles and whispers that maybe this fight will be the one where Shitty decides that Jack is more trouble than he's worth. “That’s not it, I swear, you _know_ that. I’ve just...I’ve been busy, y’know?”

There’s a huff on the other end of the line, and if Jack closes his eyes tight enough, he can imagine Shitty scowling and scuffing his shoes across the ground, breaths curling into mist in the cold Boston air. “Too busy for your best friend?” Shitty asks him, and the bitterness is fading but still there, still cutting.

“Shits,” Jack pleads, sinking back into the plush throw pillows Bitty had brought with him three visits ago. He reaches out for the pale blue one that Bitty cuddles into his chest whenever they watch a movie. He buries his nose in the fabric and inhales deep. He catches traces of Bitty's cologne and shampoo, and it helps to tamp down on the anxiety unfurling in his chest. "I'm _sorry."_

“I miss you,” Shitty says quietly. He’s lost the anger, but the quiet upset lingers. “I haven’t seen you one on one in for-fucking-ever, Jack. I love hanging out with you and Lardo and the boys back at the Haus, but. _Dude._ ”

"I know," Jack admits. It's true; Shitty came up to Montreal for a week at the end of the summer, and they'd spent the entire time playing video games and street hockey and drinking beers in his parents' back garden, but since the season started and Shitty's classes began, it's been hard to spend the same sort of quality time together.

Not to mention that whenever Jack finds himself with a free weekend, he's more than eager to smuggle Bitty down to Providence for some one on one time of their own.

But Shitty doesn't know anything about that, and Jack certainly isn't going to tell him without talking to Bits first, no matter how much he yearns to do so in this moment.

He sends up a mental apology - not to Heaven, but north to Samwell and the boyfriend it holds - and takes a deep breath. "Listen, Shits, I've got a weekend free in two weeks. I had plans, but. I'll cancel."

There's a long pause down on the other end before Shitty says, "Nah, bro, you don't have to do that," in a tone that implies he would like it very much if Jack _did._

"I want to see you," he says firmly, instead of the _'no big deal'_ or _'it's no problem'_ that want to trip off his tongue. He can't say either without lying, not until he talks to Bits. "I can come up here, or - "

"Brah, no way, I'll come down there!" Shitty says, sounding much happier and light than Jack has heard him in - fuck, _months._ He can't believe he didn't notice before how much the distance between them was straining at Shitty until right now, when his excitement is in full force. "I gotta get a load of that fucking deli you're always yammering about. No _way_ anyone makes sandwiches that good. I gotta see that shit for myself."

Jack can breathe a little easier with the remnants of Bitty's scent wafting up to him from the pillow and Shitty happily making travel plans in his ear, and by the time they hang up nearly an hour later, friendship still firmly intact, the flame of anxiety inside of him has dwindled back down into its usual flickering pilot light.

At least, until he looks back down at his phone and realizes he has to call Bitty and be the bearer of bad news.

Bits will understand, though, he tells himself firmly, even as his thumb shakes it's way across the dial pad. Sure, it's been two weeks since they were last able to see each other, and after this now-cancelled visit it's bound to be another month at least before their schedules coincide, but Christmas and New Year’s aren't too far off and he's pretty confident about his ds of spending at least one of those with Bitty, if they don’t manage a visit or two before then.

Despite all of his internalized reassurances, his heart still jumps into his throat when Bitty answers the phone with a cheery, "Hey, honey! I was just thinking about you!"

Jack grins down at the pillow still sandwiched between his arm and his chest. "Not on your blog, I hope."

Bitty laughs, and Jack can imagine him perched in his desk chair, waving a hand dismissively. Or maybe curled on his bed, worrying unconsciously at Señor Bun's ears and gazing up at one of the photos of Jack he has taped to his wall. He hopes it's their selfie from graduation; the one they took only hours before everything changed, Jack's cheek nearly pressed against the top of Bitty's head and Bitty's eyes cutting to him ever so slightly, cheeks red and smile bright.

"Lord, no," Bitty reassures him. There's a familiar shuffling noise on the other end and Jack closes his eyes. He's on his bed, then. "Just looking at all these pictures of a handsome man I got posted up in my bedroom." There's a dreamy sigh, followed by a mischievous, "Yessir, that Holster is looking mighty fine these days."

"Hey!" Jack protests with a frown, but Bitty just giggles.

"I miss you," he manages to sigh out between his small, hiccuping laughs. His tone is saccharine sweet in a way Jack adores, because it always precedes him saying things that make Jack's heart feel full to bursting. "Sweetie, you know you're the only one for me."

Jack clenches the pillow more tightly to himself. _"I miss you, too, Bits,_ " he starts to say, but he's interrupted by another happy sigh. "Lord, I cannot wait until I see you again. These two weeks can't go fast enough, I tell you."

The words crackle and die in the back of Jack's throat, and when he tries to swallow them, they taste like ash. "Um, Bits. Listen. That's actually why I called you."

There's a pause, and then a cautious, "Oh?"

His tone has lost its previous playfulness and has veered off into the area of 'tentative wariness.' Jack hates it when Bitty sounds like that, when he closes himself off a bit and regresses back to talking like he's a Frog and Jack is still circling him like a mean hockey shark. They've come so far since those days, Jack loves Bitty so much, and that careful distance in his voice never fails to hit him like a puck to the face.

He takes a deep breath. "Shitty called me. He's coming down to visit that weekend."

A small, disappointed, "Oh," wavers down the line when Bitty gets what Jack isn't saying. Shitty will be here, which means Bits can't be here, because that would mean explaining why Bitty is so at home in Jack's apartment, and why the doorman knows stuff about Bitty he couldn't possibly know without having several conversations between them. It would mean a test of Jack's ability to be around Bitty for an extended period of time without kissing him or gazing at him for too long.

Bitty understands, Jack knows, but neither of them have to like it.  

"Okay."

"I'm sorry," Jack says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "It's just...he misses me, and he's starting to really dig into why I keep putting off hanging out with him, and I can't - he's my best friend, you know?"

"I get it," Bitty reassures him. He sounds so gentle and so, so sad. Jack wishes he could kiss him. "It's, um, probably for the best. I don't know how Rans and Holster haven't started snooping around yet, but they're starting to get suspicious about me disappearing all the time, and Lord knows there's no keeping a secret with those two. So."

He sounds like he's barely convinced himself of this explanation, but Jack grasps at it like a lifeline, desperate for Bitty not to be upset anymore. "Ha, right? And it's not like I can tell Shitty why I've been blowing him off, not without...you know."

 _Coming out_.

"Right," Bitty agrees faintly. “Well. If Shitty’s getting suspicious…”

“Maybe,” Jack starts, before the idea is even fully formed inside his head. “We should. You know. Cool off? For a bit?”

There’s nothing but dead silence on the other end of the phone, broken only by the quiet rasp of Bitty breathing.

“It’s just,” Jack says hastily, and his voice is a lot stronger, a lot more steady than the rest of him feels. “Only to get the guys off our backs, you know? Maybe it’s good you aren’t coming down soon, if it gets the guys off your case and Shitty stops asking about my ‘girlfriend’.”

It makes sense, come to think of it. Bitty _has_ been spending an awful amount of time in Providence with Jack whenever he can, and he thinks one of the newest rounds of Frogs - or ‘Tadpoles’, as Bits like to say - is starting to catch onto the fact that whenever Jack comes to visit, he and Bitty conveniently go missing at the same time. It’s the kid that seems to constantly be asking questions, and Jack doesn’t want to leave Bitty alone to fend off that kind of inquisition.

He’s going to miss Bitty something terrible, but the longer he thinks about it, the more it seems like the best temporary solution to their current problem.

“Oh,” Bitty says again, sounding far away. “Okay. If...if that’s what you want, Jack.”

“I think it’s for the best,” he says, moderately confident in his opinion, and he tries to make his voice as firm as possible to reflect that. “We can still text and call, obviously.”

“Okay,” Bitty says, still sounding distant, like he’s years away. “Okay.”

A faint chime jangles from his side of the phone, and Jack recognizes the noise as the one made by the bunny shaped egg timer Lardo had given Bitty for Christmas his freshman year.

“Oh, I,” Bitty says, sounding startled. The sharp ringing of the timer cuts out. “I need to go? I have a pie in the oven.”

“Alright,” Jack agrees, disappointment deflating the set of his shoulders. Bitty doesn’t normally hang up when he has to deal with his pies, but if he does, it’s usually for a good reason, like someone studying in the kitchen and Bitty not wanting to deal with eavesdroppers. “I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Sure,” Bitty tells him, still in that sad and static voice that’s beginning to grate on Jack's anxiety. “That’s. That’s fine.”

Neither of them say anything for a handful of seconds.

Jack clears his throat and softly says, “Bye, Bits.”

There’s a long, sharp inhale that’s followed by a shaky sounding breath out. “Bye, Jack,” Bitty whispers, and then the background chatter that Jack can hear cuts out when he hangs up.

Jack keeps the phone pressed against his ear long after the call has ended, nose buried in the throw pillow, and misses Bitty like a limb.

 

 

**ooo**

 

 

Things with Shitty are much, much better leading up to, during, and after his visit. Jack has to admit that as much as he’s loved having Bitty slowly taking over his apartment with every visit, it’s good to be able to relax and hang out with Shitty the way that they used to. He does make a mental note to steam clean his sofa before the next time Bitty comes by, because Shitty spends most of his visit with his bare ass firmly planted on the cushions, stuffing his face with pizza and deli sandwiches (“These sammies are fucking _swawesome,_ brah!”) and swearing at the TV while they play Halo and Mario Kart.

Jack feels pretty terrible about not realizing how much he truly missed Shitty, and even worse whenever he remembers that Shitty was totally aware of the distance growing between them. They talk about it, intense and at length, over drinks and watching sitcoms on Netflix, and Jack can't deny that when the weekend is over, he feels lighter and closer to Shitty than he's felt in the past few months.

He nearly slips up a handful of times, mentions of something Bitty did or Bitty said dancing on the tip of his tongue. He lets a couple loose, figuring it isn't unusual for two former teammates and good friends to keep in touch, but he has to stop himself from starting a couple of sentences with, _"The last time Bits was here..."_

There are a few close calls where he nearly blurts out everything to Shitty; almost tells him about slowly falling for Bits but not realizing it until his own dad had to point it out, about running across campus to kiss Bitty, about laying back in the bed of a pickup and watching the fireworks change the colors of Bitty's skin and thinking, _this is it, this is it, I'm in love._

(He hasn't told Bitty yet; there have been so many moments where it would have been easy to, but every time he opens his mouth to do so, the words stick in a place that's afraid to scare Bits off with just how seriously Jack thinks about spending the rest of their lives together.)

Instead, he swallows the confessions down with a mouthful of root beer and shoulders Shitty when he tosses out a shell that hits Jack's car dead on.

Things with Shitty are much, much better, but lately things with Bitty have been...odd.

He's been strangely silent on the phone whenever Jack has called, often excusing himself after only a handful of minutes. He also keeps coming up with reasons he can't talk on Skype for too long, which is a consistent disappointment, but nothing too dire. Midterms are going on the week leading up to Shitty's visit, Jack knows, so he doesn't think too much of it. It's probably better that he isn't hearing from his boyfriend too much; Bits has a tendency to procrastinate with baking and Twitter, so his silence on the phone and on his Twitter page probably means he's actually cracking down on studying for once.

He sends a couple of 'good luck' texts over the course of a few days, when he knows Bitty has his tests, but rarely gets anything in return. And then suddenly Shitty's there, and Jack pockets his phone and forgets for a while that he and Bits haven't spoken much in the past two weeks.

Jack takes a couple selfies of him and Shits over the weekend, despite an egregious amount of chirping from his friend for doing so, and quietly sends them all off to Bitty when he has the chance.

Bitty, strangely, only responds to a single photo, a blurry one where Shitty was grabbing hard at Jack's face and laying a messy kiss high on his cheekbone. He writes, "Ha. Tell Shitty 'hi' from me & Lardo," but that's it.

Jack has a game tomorrow night, and calling Bits the night before a home game has become part of his pre-game routine. He's carefully watching his chicken breast sizzle on a grill pan when he pulls his phone out of his pocket and hits the speed dial.

The phone rings and rings. And rings. And _rings,_ until Bitty's voicemail kicks in.

Jack hangs up with a frown at the sound of the automated message, and stares at his phone screen until it goes black. He unlocks it and hits redial and holds his phone to his ear, checking the clock on his wall as he does so. It's nearing 7pm on a Sunday, meaning Bitty's definitely not in class, and he always answers if he can.

The ringing gives way to Bitty's voicemail for a second time, and Jack is just...stumped. He's lost enough that it takes a few seconds for him to realize he's currently leaving a message of nothing but his breaths into the microphone, so he clears his throat. "Hey, Bittle. It's me. Jack. It's Jack. Um, just making myself some dinner and thought I would call. I guess you're busy? Call me back when you can, okay?" He leans despondently against the granite countertop and uses a pair of tongs to turn his chicken breast to the other side, frowning when he sees one side of it has gotten a bit burnt. "I, uh. I miss you. Bye."

He hangs up but keeps his phone in his hand, making sure to take it off of vibrate so that he won't miss the blare of Bitty's ringtone when he calls.

Only, Bitty never calls.

Not when Jack's chicken is done cooking with only some minor charring, not when he's microwaving a packet of brown rice, and not when Jack's finished eating and is carefully rinsing his dishes off with one eye on his phone.

He still hasn't called by the time Jack tucks himself into bed that night and falls asleep staring at his phone on the bedside table, willing it to ring.

He wakes up the next morning to the insistent chime of an incoming text message, and clumsily grabs for his phone with sleep-dumb hands, heart thudding in his chest when he sees the message is from his boyfriend.

**_Good luck today._ **

A cold weight of disappointment settles in Jack's stomach, underneath the frantic thrum of his heart. He scrolls up through their message chain and back down to the newest text, thinking that maybe Bits has sent another message filled with his usual hearts and kissing emojis, but they aren't there.

He scrubs a hand over his face when he realizes the time stamp on the text was only seven minutes earlier, and types a quick, _Can I call you?_ And hits send.

Bitty doesn't respond for twenty minutes, and even then it only serves to make the twist of disappointment in Jack's stomach into a Gordian knot.

 ******_Sorry, I can't right now._**  
**_Maybe later?  
_ _I'll call you._**

Still no emojis where there are normally at least three.

 _Everything okay?_ Jack types, worried. He tacks on a _:-(_ at the last minute.

 ******_Fine, fine, just, y'know._**  
**_Busy D:  
_ _I'll call you later._**

It's silly, but the anxious feeling in his gut lessens at the sight of the distressed looking emoticon that Bittle has sent to him. He remembers when the group text for their circle of friends had first begun, Jack and Bitty hardly more than acquaintances and teammates, and he'd been irritated by the constant barrage of smileys and little cartoon birds. It had been worse when the rest of the team picked up the habit, leading to an unfortunate week long stint where the text chain consisted of Holster and Bitty communicating solely through emojis.

Now, Jack can't tamp down on the smile that spreads across his face whenever he receives a deluge of those smiley faces with hearts for eyes, or his favorite combination of the blushing one and the one that's blowing a kiss.

He scrolls back up through their texts, and realizes that Bitty hasn't sent him any emojis in a long time.

He flicks back into the text box and types out, _Looking forward to it :-)_

He gets a singular smiley face in return, and then Bitty doesn't text him for the rest of the day.

He doesn't call, either. Jack loiters in the locker room as long as he can before going down the tunnel and out onto the ice, one eye on his cell phone and a rock in his gut the size of Gibralter. He can't shake the feeling that's weighing down his shoulders, making them feel clumsy and weak, and not even the roar of a home-game crowd can lift his spirits.

The game itself is brutal. They're playing the Baltimore Terns, a team whose defense has the reputation for being rough and playing nasty, and tonight is no exception. It doesn't help that as much as Jack is focused on the ice and the puck flying across it, there's a fraction of his mind still lingering in the locker room, wondering why Bitty never called.

He takes a couple of hard checks during the first period, but manages to get an assist with Marty's goal. In the second, he gets dealt a nasty hook across the ankles that sends him crashing to the ice, chin scraping, but it nabs them a power play. Tater gets them a goal with a wicked looking wrister, and puts them two points up.

Jack keeps eating pipe with every shot he makes on Daughtry, the Terns' goalie, and the frustration of a hard game and failed shots and Bitty's strange silence gets the best of him. Number 37 on the Terns, an enormous American by the ironic name of Kevin Short, hooks Jack for the second time during the game, and when Jack tries to shake it off and skate past, he gets a high stick for his trouble. It knocks at his helmet and wedges painfully against his cheek, so he bats the stick down and sends it clattering to the ice. The refs, apparently oblivious to the two bad moves, suddenly start to pay attention.

"Fuck off, eh?" he snaps, temper fraying and splitting at the seams. He taps the fallen stick out of Short's reach when he goes to grab it, feeling petty, and isn't surprised by the hard shove he gets to his shoulder in return.

"You wanna fucking go?" Shortie yells back, leaning into his face. "Let's fucking _go_ , pretty boy."

Jack's never been one for a scrum, tries to avoid on-ice fighting as much as possible, but he's shaking off his gloves before he's even fully aware of what his body is doing. It isn't until Marty and Tater are dragging him back that he realizes there's blood dripping from his nose and his knuckles feel raw and bruised. Shortie is snarling at him through a mouthful of bloody teeth, lips stained a vivid red, a cut to the forehead that's splicing his eyebrow into three different sections. He's shouting taunts at Jack even as the refs and his Captain hold him back.

He's escorted off the ice with two and a half minutes left in the third, bristling with shame and still prickly with anger, mad at Shortie and furious with himself for not being able to keep his composure for the last stretch of the game.

The Falcs come out on top, Thirdy netting a goal in the last forty seconds and securing a 5-1 win, but Jack's mood is sour still underneath the thrill of a near shut-out. Guy has a couple of choice words for him about taking unnecessary penalties just because Shortie has an attitude problem, but claps him on the shoulder with a gruff, "Hell of a right hook, kid," before ambling off to his stall.

Jack slips out of sight before the media huddle begins, and he knows he'll catch hell from George for it later, but tonight is one of those nights where he just _can't._

He drives home in a silence that's oddly tense, for all that he's the only person in the car, and after he's pulled to a stop in his parking space, he has a take a few minutes to lean his forehead against the steering wheel and will himself to take several long, deep breaths.

He pulls the bill of his cap low over his eyes and fiddles with his key ring the entire way up to his apartment, thumb running over the small pie shaped keychain that Bitty had gotten for him not long after he moved in. Some of the paint is wearing down in the places where Jack palms at it the most.

 _Câlisse_ , he misses Bitty so much.

He's barely through the front door before his phone begins to buzz in his pocket. He winces but resolves to ignore it, sure that it's George calling to chew him out, and focuses instead on locking his front door and carefully storing all of his hockey gear in the bedroom he's using as an equipment room. Next, he turns his attention to his post-game meal, consisting of leftover chicken, some hastily steamed broccoli, and a protein shake that he doesn't mix well and is sort of gritty in his mouth.

He's just dropping his food onto the small coffee table in his living room when his phone begins buzzing anew, only to abruptly cut off after a single ring. Curiosity, as well as the idea of facing the inevitable, wins out and he finally digs his phone out of his pocket. He steels himself for George's wrath, which is probably why he's so surprised when he unlocks the phone and sees only _Missed Call (5): Eric Bittle,_ and a notification for a voicemail.

He fumbles with his fork in his haste to listen to the message, metal clattering horribly against the porcelain of his plate, but he shoves his phone against his ear and lets the world fade out to little else than the quiet click and soft sound of Bitty's breathing.

 _"Hi, Jack,"_ comes Bits' voice after a second or two of silence. _"That was one tough game tonight, huh?"_ A pause. _"You...you played so well, though. I know you probably don't think so, but Lord, if it had been me those bullies were coming after like that, I probably would've been sent off the ice way before the third."_ There's another short, considering pause. _"Well, probably not. Short looks like he would eat me for breakfast, the ogre."_

Jack's mouth twitches up into a smile, eyes still closed and the palm of one hand curled around his chin as he relishes the quiet cadence of Bitty's drawl.

 _"I'm sorry I didn't call before the game,"_ Bitty says, voice turning soft and sounding distant. Almost sad. _"I suppose you're sore with me for it, but I just thought, maybe you wouldn't want me to, considering...well. I was helping Holster study for his Humanities exam, anyway - his professor had food poisoning last week and they had to reschedule, but that's what you get for trusting cafeteria food, if you ask me."_

There's another pause, longer and somehow heavier than the two before it. _"I hope you're doing alright, Jack. Short looks like he has a mean temper. I just...I hope you aren't hurting too bad,"_ A shaking inhale rattles down the line, and Jack frowns. _"Lord, look at the time. I should probably head to bed, I have to be up early for French class. I'll talk to you another day, I suppose."_ There's the audible sound of Bitty swallowing, and a whispered, _"Bye, Jack,"_ before the message ends and the automated voice belonging to his phone is asking him if he would like to save or delete the voicemail.

He hangs up without doing either and stares at the screen of his phone until it goes black. He wants to call Bits back - he's probably still awake, his last call wasn't too long ago - but there was something in the far-away tone of Bitty's voicemail that gives him pause. Something he said sticks in the front of Jack's brain and settles in, content to drive him insane.

_"I just thought, maybe you wouldn't want me to, considering...well."_

Jack can't imagine a world where he wouldn't want Bitty to call him for their usual pre-game talk, which consists mostly of Jack listening to Bitty gossip about the latest goings on at the Haus and Bitty piping up with helpful insights while Jack runs over possible plays with him. It's strange how it catches him off guard, sometimes, how much Bittle loves hockey. He knows it shouldn't - Bitty is good, he's _very_ good, and the fastest skater Jack has ever played with. He's good enough to have earned a full ride athletic scholarship to a school with one of the best teams in the country, but sometimes it seems that the Bitty who bakes nonstop and worships Beyoncé with a frightening zeal is a completely different Bitty than the one who can find the tape on Jack's stick with barely a glance and who can crash the net like a smaller, blond, American Evgeni Malkin.

But then Bits will give him interesting advice on how to deal with certain players in between explaining his latest baking frontier, and Jack's heart will seize up with so much outright _love_ that he can barely stand it.

They haven't had one of those talks in a while, he realizes as he's slowly cutting into his chicken. He can't stop thinking about it, once he starts.

The chicken breast was part of a massive pack Jack had purchased at Costco, eating plain until Bitty had come to visit and tutted over him before decadently seasoning and vacuum sealing them all, stashing them in the freezer for future use.

Jack knows that this chicken has rosemary and thyme and roasted garlic, and just the right amount of salt and pepper, but he thinks about how far away Bits feels in this moment, and it all tastes like sawdust in his mouth.

 

 

**ooo**

 

 

He finds out through the group text with Lardo, Shitty, Ransom, Bitty, and Holster that one of their roadies has been cancelled due to an electrical fire at the other team's rink. With no ice to skate on, there's no hockey to play, so now Ransom and Holster are trying to cajole Jack and Shitty into traveling to Samwell for a last minute kegster.

Jack has games on Friday and Sunday, which means going to a Haus party on Saturday is in advisable. He tells them as much, but the wheels are spinning in his head. He and Bitty had originally discarded this weekend as an option for visiting because of their conflicting game schedules, but with the sudden freeing up of days, there's no reason not to send Bits a ticket for his Friday game.

He feels excitement start to churn his gut the longer he thinks it through. Bitty only has the one class, early Friday morning, so he could easily catch the bus down to Providence in the early afternoon. There would only be a few hours to spare between them before Jack would need to be at the stadium, but they could have all day Saturday and a bit of Sunday morning, too.

He exits out of the group chat and quickly calls the box office at the rink, arranging for a seat against the glass by the Falconers' bench. It's been so long since he and Bitty had any time to themselves, that he finds he wants to keep him as close by as humanly possible, even when Jack's busy on the ice.

He has the office mail the ticket out that day, addressed to Bitty and tucked into an express envelope, sure to be at Samwell before Friday. In the meantime, he looks up the Greyhound schedule for the station nearest to the Haus, and fires off a quick email to Bitty with the only departure time that still has seats available, typing a quick apology about how Bits would have to catch a cab from the station and to the arena.

The rest of the week is a blur of practice skates and games. Bitty doesn't email him back about the bus, but he does text to thank Jack for the ticket on Wednesday afternoon when Jack is gearing up for practice.

Jack smiles down at his phone, halfway through typing out a question about what time Bitty think he'll make it into town, when his phone buzzes in his hand.

**_I don't know if it's a good idea for me to come down._ **

Jack's stomach swoops unpleasantly. He deletes his half-finished text and sends back, _What? Why?_

After five minutes, when Bitty still hasn't responded, Jack sends, _I really want to see you._

 **_That's not fair, Jack, asking me to come down alone like that,_ ** is the response he gets.

Jack understands the sentiment, he supposes; it does seem sort of rude, in retrospect, to invite only Bitty when the rest of the SMH is available as well and more than willing to make the trip down to one of Jack's home games. He desperately wants some alone time with Bits - at this point, it's been a little over a month since Shitty's visit and he hasn't seen Bitty since the end of October. Now, with mid-December creeping up and Christmas just around the corner, he's feeling restless and lovesick. More so, in the wake of Bitty's odd silences lately.

 _Please think about it,_ he types. _I would love for you to be there. I miss you._

 **_Jack. That isn't fair.  
But _ ** **_I miss you, too._ **

"Zimmboni," Tater says suddenly from Jack's right, prodding at him with the butt of his stick. "Stop being lazy, time for skate." He tsks in mock disappointment, tongue poking out between his teeth to let Jack know he's being chirped, if poorly. "Everyone say, Zimmboni, he take hockey so serious! I'm let them know, only thing he take serious is phone." He adopts a scowling expression and mimes typing on a phone, and only stops when Jack whacks the back of his hand against Tater's stomach.

"I'll be out in a minute, Tater," he promises, tapping out one last plea to Bits to see him at the game before turning off his phone and storing it in his stall.

When practice is over, he only has one text from Bitty, and even though it's brief, the promise to try and be there for the game makes him smile. They text intermittently over the course of Thursday, but Bitty begs off the pre-game phone call yet again, citing the need to study for his exam the next morning. Jack lets it go without too much objection - he figures he'll be seeing Bittle tomorrow night, after all, and it's worth the disgruntling shift to his routine to keep looking forward to their reunion.

Excitement keeps his nerves alive all day Friday, which is probably why, when he steps onto the ice for the game against the New Orleans Brass, and skates past the spot where Bitty should be sitting, his stomach drops violently when he sees who's seated there instead.

He clumsily clamors off the ice and into the bench area, rapping his knuckles against the glass. Shitty looks up from his phone and beams at him, banging both fists against the glass in quick succession. "Jack, you beautiful motherfucker!"

"What are you doing here?" Jack shouts over the noise of the crowd, studiously ignoring the people on the other side of the glass who are taking pictures of him and crying out his name. His heart is thudding painfully in his chest, and disappointment is almost acidic on the back of his tongue.

"Bitty said you sent a spare ticket to the Haus," Shitty shouts back. "But he said none of them could make it, and asked me if I wanted it, instead, like a true fucking bro."

Jack abruptly wants to vomit. He's positive some of that feeling translates itself onto his face, because the grin turning up Shitty's mouth dims significantly. "Brah, you okay?" he asks gently.

Jack doesn't trust himself to be able to speak, doesn't think he'll be able to open his mouth without gagging on the anxiety clogging up his throat, so he gives Shitty a single, brisk nod, and makes his way back out onto the ice without another word.

Jack has heard people refer to him as a hockey robot before, when he was intent on proving his own worth outside of his father's legacy and thought the only way to do so was to dedicate every waking moment to the sport. He's heard every variation of the title since he was a teenager, but he's never truly felt deserving of it until this game.

It feels like he drifts through all three periods on auto-pilot, playing textbook perfect hockey and netting two goals and an assist, barely smiling into the celly even as his teammates pile on top of him after each point. It's a blowout of a game, the Falcs winning 7-0 against a team that can't quite find their groove, but Jack is swimming through the sixty minutes of play and the press scrum that follows, absent minded as he showers and oblivious to the worried looks that Snowy and Tater are shooting him.

He doesn't feel at all a part of the world around him until he leaves the locker room and finds Shitty in the hall just outside, arms crossed over his chest and a hellishly determined expression on his face.

"You and I are gonna go get something to eat," Shitty informs him, low and serious. "And you're gonna tell me what the fuck is going on, okay?"

Jack nods, shoulders dropping, and when Shitty slings a friendly arm around his waist as they start to walk, he leans into him.

They wind up at a twenty-four hour diner that's far enough away from the arena that no Falcs fans approach him for an autograph. Shitty ushers him into a corner booth, away from the smattering of patrons that make up the rest of the diner, and after ordering them both a cup of coffee, puts his menu flat on the table and looks at Jack closely.

"Bro," he says, brows furrowing and hands knotting together. "What happened tonight?"

"I don't know what you mean," Jack says slowly, finger tracing an illustration of bacon and eggs on the menu.

"Cut the shit, man," Shitty says immediately, and Jack has to stop himself from wincing at how tired his friend sounds. "Look, I know you love me, brah, but I'm not who you thought you were gonna see tonight, am I?"

Jack clenches his teeth but shakes his head once.

Shitty's still looking at him with that laser-intense focus, and when he asks, "What is going _on,_ Jack?" it's like a dam bursts. He's spent so long avoiding this conversation, wanting to run it through with Bitty first, but the stress of the weird distance between them and the way Bitty has been avoiding him and any attempts to talk out why their relationship has taken a strange turn, has the need to confess boiling up and over.

He leans both elbows onto the sticky Formica table top and presses the fat bottoms of his palms into his eyes. "I'm gay, Shits," he says, quiet and low.

Shitty swears after a handful of seconds and Jack shrinks back into the seat. "Are you fucking serious?" Shitty demands, and pulls Jack's hands down off of his face. "Jack. Fuck. Why haven't you said anything before? I don't fucking care about any of that stuff, man. You're my best goddamn friend. Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"I haven't really told anyone," Jack admits, slipping his thumbnail into a spot on the menu's lamination where the plastic is peeling apart. "The only people who know are my mom, my dad, and...and Bitty."

He glances up at Shitty for the first time since the confession dropped out of his mouth. He looks upset and a bit disgruntled. "I feel like I wanna be mad Bits knew first," Shitty grumbles, arms crossing over his chest. "But dude's really good at talking through that kind of thing now, for someone who used fucking flashcards to come out to me." He sounds affectionate as he says it, which is reassuring in a way Jack didn't realize he was desperate for until now. Shitty eyes him speculatively. "So are you, like. Seeing anyone?"

Jack's face colors, and Shitty's eyebrows go shooting up his forehead. " _Bro,_ " he says again, sounding vaguely betrayed. "Who is it?"

Jack doesn't even get the chance to think about formulating a response - either the truth or the deflection of it - because he can see the moment Shitty's brain connects the dots and understanding makes his eyes wide.

"Oh, fuck," Shitty swears, and points at Jack. "Holy shit, dude. You and Bits?! Are you for fucking real?"

"He's amazing," Jack says, feeling oddly defensive in the face of Shitty's incredulity. "And it's. I love him, Shitty."

"Then why," Shitty hisses, bending over the table, "the fuck did you _break up with him?"_

The world slows and stops. Jack's heartbeat sounds thunderous inside his ears. "What?"

" _Jack,_ " Shitty says again, in that low, angry tone. "Bitty has been fucking miserable for a month. Lardo finally got it out of him that he'd been seeing someone but the guy dumped him during midterms, and they’ve all been under fucking lock down trying to keep him preoccupied. Why the fuck do you think they're throwing a kegster tomorrow? Holster and Ransom are trying to get him _laid,_ because he's fucking broken hearted. About _you._ What the _fuck_ , Jack?"

"I didn't," Jack starts, but has to stop to swallow down the bile in his throat. His hands are shaking violently, he realizes distantly, staring down at them. "I didn't break up with him." Breathing is becoming more and more difficult, and his hands just won't stop shaking. "Bitty thinks we broke up?"

The waitress stops by with their drinks and offers them a few more minutes to get their orders ready, but Jack stares at the steam furling up from the cup, feeling too sick to contemplate taking a sip.

"Jack," Shitty says urgently, reaching out to curl his hands around Jack's wrists, pressing his trembling hands down onto the table. "You need to tell me what the fuck you said to him."

Jack does, in halting, shuddering bursts, explaining his suggestion to Bitty that they hold off on visits for a while, to give him and Shitty some time to spend together and to get the SMH off Bitty's back. Shitty listens closely, not interrupting, but when he's done talking, Shitty swears and opens up his wallet, throwing down a handful of bills before standing and ushering Jack out of the booth.

"Give me your car keys," he demands, hustling Jack in the direction of the parking lot. "We need to get your ass to Samwell, like, fucking yesterday."

"I didn't break up with him," Jack whispers, still feeling dazed and sick. "Why would he think..."

"Dude," Shitty says, reaching into Jack's coat pocket and digging around for the keys to his car. "You told him you guys needed to cool things off so that people didn’t catch wise. That _sounds_ like a fucking break up."

"It wasn't," Jack insists, letting Shitty shove him into the passenger seat.

"You know that," Shitty tells him, then crosses around the car to throw himself into the driver's seat and start the engine. "And I know that, because you explained it to me. But Bits? Bits definitely does not know that."

The world slams back into focus and spins, too fast and violent, around Jack's head. Everything about Bitty's estrangement over the past month - the lack of phone calls, the sparse texts, the way he thought Jack wouldn't want to talk to him before games anymore and the way he'd told him _'that's not fair',_ all starts to make hysterical, alarming sense.

_Bitty thinks he broke up with him._

"Fuck," Jack swears, bending down over his knees and fisting his hands into his hair. Shitty merges onto the interstate, going twenty miles over the speed limit. "Fuck!"

Normally, it takes forty-five minutes to get from Providence to Samwell.

Shitty makes it in twenty-eight.

Jack's car comes to a screeching halt outside of the Haus, and it's barely in park before Jack is struggling with his seatbelt, hands still numb and shaking, and nearly falling out of the car onto the grass.

It's late, but not so late that everyone in the Haus is asleep. He can hear the tv running in the living room, can hear Chowder's excitable chatter and the distant snap of Dex and Nursey fighting, as well as the murmur of a dozen other voices. Shitty catches up to him on the porch and gently shoves past him so he can bang his fist on the front door.

The sound of talking pauses from inside, broken up by footsteps crossing to the threshold, and when the door opens, Chowder blinks up at the both of them in surprise. "Shitty!" He says, sounding thrilled. His eyes get even wider when he catches sight of Jack, pale and looming over Shitty's shoulder. "Jack! Wow, what are you guys - ?"

"Not now, Chowder," Shitty says firmly, moving to press up behind Jack and steer him into the house. "Where's Bits?"

Almost on cue, a figure steps into the doorway to the kitchen, hands twisted up in a dish towel and face drawn together in concern. "Everything alright?" Bitty asks, and Jack's knees abruptly go weak at the sound of his voice.

"Bitty," he says, strangled, when Bitty realizes who's standing in the doorway and the towel drops to the floor. Lardo appears just behind him, and her expression turns slightly murderous when she sees Jack. She clearly knows more about the situation than she’s let on, if the way she’s glaring at him is any indication, but Jack just shrugs off Shitty's hands and practically falls forward, tripping down the hallway before stopping in front of Bitty.

"Jack," Bitty says, sounding shell shocked.

Jack lets out a ragged breath and drops to his knees, painful and cracking, and presses his forehead into Bitty's stomach. He doesn't care, suddenly, that the rest of the Haus is watching them in silence. The only thing he cares about is the way Bitty is warm under his cheek and the way the taper of his waist feels under Jack's desperate hands.

"Jack," Bitty says again, but this time there's no mistaking his tone for anything other than utterly wounded. Small, gentle hands land on Jack's shoulders and try to carefully shove him back, but he just grasps Bitty more closely to him. "Jack, _please,_ let go."

" _Non,_ " Jack protests. "Not until...Bitty. Bitty, I didn't break up with you."

The hands on Jack's shoulders still. Behind them, one of the guys gives a surprised inhale. He hears, in the background, Shitty ushering all of them away.

"I didn't," Jack insists, burying his face into the soft fabric of Bitty's tee. " _Tabernac,_ Bitty, I _didn't._ "

"You said," Bitty interjects, throat clicking and voice thick. "Lord, Jack, you told me we had to cool things off. How...how was I supposed to - ?" His fingers find the back of Jack’s neck and tighten over it, nails scraping through the short hairs at his nape.

“I know,” Jack admits, because in the wake of Shitty laying out how easy it was for Bitty to misinterpret the suggestion and Jack’s adamancy, he _does_ . “I said the wrong thing, I know, but I didn’t want - I _never_ want that.”

Bitty’s stomach hitches under his head. “Never?” Bitty questions him, quiet and unsure. His fingers drift upwards, thumbs carefully tracing over the arches of Jack’s cheekbones, and the rest of his fingers softly urge Jack’s gaze up.

He’s crying, Jack notices with another dizzying turn of his stomach onto itself. There are dark, bruising circles under Bitty’s eyes, like he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days, and his eyes are rimmed red and glassy in the weak light of the hallway. He looks miserable, just like Shitty had said, but he’s also the most beautiful thing Jack has ever seen and he loves him so much.

“I love you,” Jack tells him. He says it fiercely, hands still tightly gripped around his waist. Bitty makes a noise in the back of his throat, like he’s strangling a sob there. “I love you so much, and I am _so sorry._ ”

“Up,” Bitty says in response, tugging at Jack’s face and urging him up off of his knees. “Come on, get up, Jack, please, _please_.”

Jack rises to his feet and is still stooped low when Bitty throws his arms around his neck and buries his face against Jack’s collarbone, wrapping around him tightly. He doesn’t hesitate to loop his own arms around Bitty’s back, lifting him off the floor and into a crushing embrace. “I’m so sorry,” he chants into Bitty’s hair, pressing fervent kisses into his temple, against his cheek, into the corner of his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I’m sorry.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Bitty whispers into the line of Jack’s throat. “Lord, Jack, I love you, too.”

Jack may never forgive himself for nearly screwing this up completely, for almost losing one of the best things in his life, but as he and Bitty hold each other in vice-like grips, murmuring apologies and assurances and each other’s names, over and over, he vows to himself never to let this go again.

 

 

**ooo**

 

 

It takes them a long time to untangle long enough to migrate upstairs to Bitty’s bedroom, but eventually they curl together like parentheses on top of the bedcovers, Jack keeping Bitty’s hand firmly wedged between his own.

He’s thankful that the morning skate after a game is always optional, because there’s no way he’s making it back to Providence before sunrise. He and Bitty stay awake most of the night, still holding onto one another like they’re afraid the other will disappear, and talk until the sky begins to lighten with the orangey-pink of dawn.

Jack feels as though he apologizes a thousand times, but none of it seems like enough. The rottenly anxious part of him that will always be at his core makes him hate himself for allowing the distance and miscommunication to yawn so widely between them over the past month. He’d always taken such care to talk these things out with Bitty, to watch for any potential missteps and sort them out before they could fester and ruin one of the best things in his life.

He doesn’t understand how he could screw this up so badly, how he could be so oblivious to what he can clearly see, in retrospect, as Bitty’s heartache.

He tells Bitty all of this, desperate now to communicate everything lest he wreck things again, but Bitty shushes him and curls closer, drawing Jack’s head into his chest.

“We both could’ve said something, sweetheart,” he murmurs, fingers carding through Jack’s hair. “Lord knows I was confused as to why you kept texting and calling, telling me you miss me. I should’ve asked. I suppose I was too scared of it, though, like it would make it real if I did. Or that you’d stop trying, and I’d lose you forever.”

Jack clutches at him until Bitty runs a soothing hand across the line of his shoulders. After a moment or two, he suddenly shudders beneath him. Jack looks up, concerned, but it fades when he realizes that Bitty was chuckling to himself, an amused smile twisting up his lips.

“What?” he asks, slipping a hand beneath Bits’ shirt and tucking it around his ribs, wedging his fingers between Bitty’s body and the bed.

“It’s just,” Bitty starts, before giggling again, almost hysterically. “Gosh, Jack, all that trouble, and now the cat is so far out of the bag it ain’t ever coming back.” He giggles again, a breathy snort escaping. “Chowder looked like he was going to faint, I swear.”

Jack lets out a huff of air that’s as close to a laugh as he’s going to get while his anxiety is still tying him up in knots, He leans his forehead into Bitty’s sternum briefly and then presses a kiss there, for good measure. “I don’t mind,” he says carefully, thumb sweeping over the ridges of Bitty’s ribs, “if the team knows. Do you?”

“Jack,” Bits says, voice serious and fond under the rasp he’s developed from hours of talking. “Sweetheart, I’ve never minded. I just wanted to do right by you, and keep your career safe.”

Jack kisses his chest again, slow and lingering. “I don’t want to lose you because of hockey,” he says lowly.

“And I don’t want you to lose hockey because of me,” Bitty returns, chiding. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ever giving you up without a fight again, mister.”

Jack has no intention of ever giving him a reason to fight, but he leans up to kiss Bits for the sentiment all the same. “I think...I’m going to tell the Falconers,” he whispers into Bitty’s mouth, noses brushing and eyes almost crossed in an effort to make eye contact with Bitty.

Bitty inhales sharply underneath of him. Jack feels the expansion of his ribs beneath his hand, feels the way his heartbeat kicks up. “Are you sure?”

Jack nods.

“Okay,” Bitty breathes out, and kisses the side of Jack’s chin. “Okay.”

Jack braces his other hand against the mattress and leans in for a kiss. Outside Bitty’s bedroom door, he can hear the heavy sound of Holster and Ransom thundering down the attic steps, the slowly building rumble of noise as the Haus convenes in the living room. The world outside the two of them wakes up, and Jack knows it’s only a matter of time before their friends come crashing in, piling on top of them and demanding details; knows it’s a matter of time before the rest of the world demands the same, microphones pressing into his face.

Until then, he contents himself with the here, the now, and the feeling of Bitty breathing gently in his arms.

His heart settles, and he kisses Bitty again. “I love you,” he tells him.

Bitty smiles, and the knot in Jack’s chest unfurls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I realize it's a bit OOC of Jack to let the miscommunication go this far, since he wasn't willing to let misunderstandings abide with Bitty after the "I'm not dating - I don't have a girlfriend" incident after the kegster. but dang it, my heart wanted angst, so...*hand waving*
> 
> Also it's my headcanon that Jack probably told Bitty he loves him over that fourth of July weekend but for the sake of this fic that didn't happen
> 
> Lastly, there was once an ECHL team in New Orleans called the Brass, but they were disbanded after five years when the Pelicans decided they didn't want to share an arena, which has hence denied me hockey in this city. *shakes fist*


End file.
